


Liberation

by eisenhardted



Category: Captain America (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 17:46:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5752474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eisenhardted/pseuds/eisenhardted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught in the aftermath of liberation, two lost children finally start to live again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liberation

“Kid, look, we’re not going to hurt you.” 

It’s four hours since liberation and Bucky’s already exhausted. It’s something that’s been on his mind for days, freeing these people since first he’d seen their plight, but it’s nothing short of mentally taxing to be able to sit there and remain emotionally detached. Steve’s better at it than he is, at treading on egg shells when it’s children they’re supposed to be coercing into eating, but how are you supposed to treat a child, when they stopped being children the day they were forced into that hellish place? 

Supporting his elbows on his needs, the US soldier sighs, smiling a frustrated but lopsided smile at the quivering little girl opposite him. It’s hard to imagine how any of them are still alive at this point, when they really are all skin and bone, like once polished marble now weathered and battered in the wake of so much hardship. It makes him uncomfortable but determined none the less to make sure this one child is fed, if not the others. “And…you can’t understand a word I’m saying can you?” 

He wonders if he should try German, but that seems like it would do more harm than good. He doesn’t want to blur the lines between the US Army and the SS. They’re the good guys, not the enemy and he can’t take the risk of confusing an already troubled mind. But that does pose the problem of how to communicate. His Polish has never been great although this one looks too dark to be native, and he doubts there’s a single person in their entire regiment that can turf out a word or two of Romani that isn’t derogatory or unfit for juvenile ears. 

Which is why he settles for a universal peace offering instead of the mandated oatmeal he’s been instructed to try and get down her neck. Fussing in his uniform for a bar of emergency issued chocolate, his thumb tears through the paper and foil fluidly to snap the not entirely inedible treat in half and offer it in earnest to the short haired waif that seems unwilling to trust him. 

There’s a moment of wariness there, when Magda’s looking at him with curious eyes, the hint of confusion present as she stares between him and the chocolate, wondering what the catch is. You always have to do something if you want extra food, and she doesn’t want to. Not again. It’s something that she can’t get her head around with these foreigners, they’re being so nice and she’s expecting the penny to suddenly drop, for the price to be made clear instead of all this perplexingly unprecedented kindness. 

It takes Bucky a long while to realise the significance, and he places it down between them instead, hands held up and open so as to show no expectation. It’s maddening to be unable to do more, yet he still remains, ever determined to give this kid the space she needs to trust someone again. It’s a good half hour before she does and he’s almost lost hope and patience by the time that scrawny little hand darts forward and snatches at the chocolate, cradling it close and experimentally taking a bite out of it as if it’s some kind of mystical thing. 

He suspects in truth it might be, after years of little more than watered down soup and a stale clump of bread, but he’s satisfied enough when she scoots in closer, nibbling on that bar and stealing the very farthest corner of his blanket. “Dziękuję.” It’s just one word. One little squeak that if he hadn’t been paying attention could easily have missed. 

But that word alone, for all it’s significance, is suddenly the greatest thing he’s ever heard.


End file.
